A person who uses a TDD typically suffers from a hearing and/or sound impairment. To place a call to a person who is not so impaired, a TDD user has to (a) dial via the TDD an 800 service telephone number associated with a so-called relay service and (b) then send via the TDD the telephone number of the unimpaired person. The relay service responsive thereto places a call to the entered telephone number and then bridges the latter call with the TDD call by translating text entered via the TDD into speech for presentation to the unimpaired person and translating a spoken response into text for presentation to the TDD user. It can be appreciated from the foregoing that a call from the unimpaired person to the TDD user would also be placed via the relay service. Moreover, if the TDD user has a need to access other telephone services, such as directory assistance, alternate billing (e.g., collect call), or any other operator service, then such access needs to be placed via the aforementioned relay service so that the TDD user's request may be translated accordingly.
It can be appreciated from the foregoing that in most instances, other than, e.g., placing a call to another TDD user, a TDD user does not have the same level of access to a telecommunications network as a nonTDD user does, since a TDD user has to place most of his/her calls through a relay service. In this respect, a TDD user is not provided with equal access to a telecommunications network, as mentioned above.